Friday, April 28, 2000
by Kevin Yee

There are lots of organized Cast Member activities. A while ago there was a department called "Cast Activities" that created, organized, and offered such activities as Canoe Races, sports tournaments, and so on. Two of those activities were "The Great Goofy Pursuit" and "Minnie's Marathon." 

The Goofy Pursuit was a car rally; teams were sent careening throughout Anaheim after dark, chasing clues like mad, in a rush to the end line. Minnie's Marathon was a 5K run through Disneyland (before it opened for the day, of course). Sadly, I never got a chance to do either event, though they were around while I was there. Look where that laziness got me; I can't even give a report to you good people about those events. Anyone want to jump in with a word about them?

Basically, when the 90's hit, it occurred to people that car rally's are dangerous and perhaps irresponsible. So someone in Cast Activities hit upon the brilliant idea to combine the two events. The result is a tiring but thrilling trivia and scavenger hunt through after-hours Disneyland, named Minnie's Moonlit Madness.

I've done Minnie's almost every year since its inception in 1990, and loved every single one. In those early days, we gathered in Small World Way or Videopolis and heard the rules. The one that sticks out most of all is "Safety, Safety, Safety!" They make you repeat it enough times. You're given bungee cords to tie your team of four people together; disengaging these ties is only allowed at the bathrooms. I can imagine they were tempted to disallow even that, just to see our reactions.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. To play Minnie's, you need to have at least two Cast Members as part of your four-person team. The team cost is like $40 or some large figure. I do think the money goes to charity, at least.

All the teams used to meet outside Harbor House; that's where employees enter Disneyland to go to work. And they'd have a "penny drive" as the kickoff to this part of the event. Whoever brought the most pennies — and to win you'd need to bring wheelbarrows (yes, multiple) full of the little copper beasties — would win a prize. I forget what kind of prize. Gift certificates or some such. I'd usually toss whatever odd change I had in my car into the pot. Starving children won't scoff at twelve cents, I assure you.

Basically the event consists of a trivia quiz and an interactive puzzle / scavenger hunt through the park. The trivia questions were pretty manageable those first few years, but boy were they hard these last couple of years! The event has gained popularity throughout the company, so it's no longer Disneyland Cast Members who form the majority of players; Studio, WDI, even ABC can now partake, and the place is crowded!

So now teams meet out back, over by the TDA administration building, and register at the appropriate booth. It's quite the carnival scene back there. Then we're trooped over to Videopolis, er I mean Fantasyland Theatre, for the trivia. They use the big screen there (which you may never have seen, now that I think about it) and a microphone for this part.

Long ago, I recall a photocopied packet of questions as our trivia, rather than a scantron. That was a mob scene, getting those distributed to everyone and then filling them out in Small World Way.

I think it was the first year when they trotted our good ole Arthur atop the Main Street Train Station and gave us the trivia question: what is Arthur's last name? For those who wonder what I'm not talking about, no it's not some animated aardvark. Arthur was an old man who visited Disneyland every day and chatted with people who worked there. Nice guy. His speech patterns took a bit of getting used to, however. He'd move around the park in his inimitable shuffle and collect "lost and found" items, only to turn them in so other Guests could benefit from his effort. He passed away in the early 90s, however. I recall that I got his last name wrong on the trivia. Figures. I can't even remember it now. Anyone out there know?

As soon as you finish the trivia, it's time for the main event. Every year the organizers come up with clever ways to distribute people throughout the park evenly, right from the get-go. Last year they shot confetti out of the Fantasyland Theatre cannons, and the first clue was on the confetti pieces! Solve that one, and then you go off to home base at the Hub.

Each time you finish a Clue, you have to return to the Hub to turn it in and get your next Clue. It makes for quite a bit of walking.

One year we all had balloons, inflated with helium and our first Clue in it. They try to make it so that first Clues send people to different places so that people spread out throughout the Park.

Last year they had a bonus possible. If you found this gigantic costumed creature, you could accost him for a "millennium" question and possibly gain extra points. The creature was an enormous, glittery cockroach — the Millennium Bug, so to speak. We didn't bother with him. Puns that bad don't deserve my attention.

A typical clue will be cryptic enough that you need to do something first to decipher it, and once unencrypted, it usually gives you a destination somewhere in the Park. So the whole team heads off in that direction as quickly as possible (no running! safety, safety, safety!) and we evaluate en route what we'll have to do. Annoyingly, once we get there they usually have some sort of hoop to jump through, with live interaction. 

A few that spring to mind: view skeletal blueprints of DL rides and identify them on your sheet, which spell out a word when put in the right order; or learning to use an abacus and performing a long arithmetic problem, or scanning a Disney Press Release for info on the board and officers. This sounds fun, and sometimes is, but I honestly believe that some of the staffers get a kick out of delaying you as much as possible. If you're trying to win, this gets very annoying.

It's really the luck of the draw nowadays. The event is so big, they have to have so many different kinds of activities so that people are constantly busy. The result is that you have to choose blindly, before the event begins, which clues you will do (numbered A6 and the like). Some clues are announced as more difficult to finish, may take more time, and thus you get more points if you finish it. There is strategy, therefore, in deciding whether you want all easy clues — you can finish everything that way — or whether you want all difficult (get more points for what you finish, but may not finish everything) or some mixture. 

So not only is your luck dependent on whether you get good clues or bad clues (some of the activities they make you do really soak up time, others don't — and it's not a reflection on how well you know Disney or how intelligent you are), your luck also depends on whether the staffers working the event help you hurry or delight in your dismay (I'm a'loving the alliteration here).

But the event can be won. Oh yes. My first year out was a great one: my team was made up of all Asians so we got to call ourselves the Orient Express. We wore our Kitchen uniform bandanas around our foreheads like a bunch of misfit karate kids. The hankies are sky blue, so this lessened our otherwise lethal appearance somewhat. I mean, that must have been it. There's no other explanation for the fact that people did not run in fear from our approach.

The Orient Express was nimble, quick, and more importantly, quick-witted. We finished all the possible Clues in 1990, the first year Minnie's was offered, and we were pretty sure we got all the Clues correct. If other teams had done so as well, then it was a matter of trivia questions. Since I was an arrogant bastard, I was sure we had a shot. But alas, though we did finish all our tasks, we came in fourth and just barely missed receiving a prize. Turns out we missed some trivia, but also one of our Clues was wrong, so we wouldn't have gotten first place even if my trivia knowledge had been better.

Fast forward a year or two, and I'm with a new team, all of us real Disney nuts, quick-mind people fast on our feet, interested in winning, and "uh" Devo fans. With the heady excitement of utter disregard for our reputations, we donned specially made Devo T-shirts, two of us wore signature yellow "power suits," and we all put on the famous red helmets you might associate with the 80's synth-rock band. Then we went off to Minnie's and made fools of ourselves chanting out Devo lyrics as we careened through the park. Loudly.

We managed to finish all the clues that time, so we figured, what the heck let's stick around for the prize ceremony. We didn't win any of the top three spots, so we shrugged and went home. A few days later when they published the complete results, we saw that we had been fourth. Again. A mere five points, a single trivia answer, separated us from the top slots. In the years since I've never come so close (though I almost always place in the top 50, these days out of 1500 teams). Maybe it was the Devo costumes.

There is even a bit of a Devo legacy, amusingly enough. For several years since that event, they've shown a slideshow compilation of photos taken at previous Minnie's (they do the slideshow while people assemble in Videopolis and wait for the trivia to start). And we are there! There haven't been that many teams goofy enough to dress up for the event, and our costume choice was so obtuse and random, that we must stick out in the organizers' minds.

Minnie's Moonlit Madness is occurring around these days at Disneyland, actually. If you're a CM who's going to play, watch for any sort of Devo slideshow. Failing that (they didn't have it last year at all), then perhaps those of you who partake in the event can help keep my heritage alive by challenging all the VoluntEARS you meet with the phrase: "Are we not men?"

I'll take you backstage the next couple of weeks as you vicariously experience the joy of hiring in at Disneyland, Orientation, and the Dis-Orientation of the first day.

 

TALK STORY!

Are you a CM or a former CM? I would love to hear and share your stories! E-mail me! Stories and comments you submit become property of and may be published on this site; we normally don't publish last names of current CMs, but if you wish to remain anonymous altogether or do not want me to share your stories, please let me know when you e-mail me. — Shoshana

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in reader-contributed stories do not reflect those of Cast Place or MousePlanet.

CM – Cast member; company lingo for “employee.” 

Empowerment Evolution – The 1995 attempt by newer park management to introduce modern accountability and market forces into the stodgy Disneyland methodology and power hierarchies. The name was meant to “empower” rank and file employees by removing layers of their management, though now there are more managers than ever.

TPO – Theme Park Operations; the division of the Disneyland hierarchy that actually works in the theme park itself.

TDA – Team Disney Anaheim; the name of the on-site administration building.

Area manager – used to be responsible for an entire land, with all business divisions in the area reporting to him.

Area supervisor – the immediate boss for location supervisors who divide up a department of intelligently grouped locations. The area supervisors in turn reported to the area manager. Nowadays all supervisors and area supervisors have been replaced by managers and assistant managers — the same idea, but smaller “business units" than a department; usually just one location in fact.

RFT – “A” status; a full-time hourly employee.

RPT – “B” status; an hourly employee five days a week but just not quite 40 hours usually.

CR – “C” status; an hourly employee who works weekends year-round and five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break).

CT – a part-time hourly employee who works five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break). No seniority, so shifts worked are usually quite short.

Locate the employment center to fill out an application, and they will call you for an interview (dress nicely, just shy of an actual suit). Once there, follow these rules, in this order of importance:

1. Smile and be very friendly. They want outgoing people.
2. Do not let the group interview throw you off balance. They want outgoing people who can “perform” a little bit.
3. Do not worry about job (in)experience. They don't care. They want friendly people, not experienced and/or hardened people.
4. Do your best to convince them you already have a Disney attitude: you want to work with people, you're a team player, and you would consider this a dream job (however, don't overdo it on the crazy-Disney-fan side either). Strike a nice balance.
5. Did I mention the importance of a smile?

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